Building a Real World

Many years ago I wrote a blog post called “Five Foundations of World-Building,” focused on fantasy and science fiction. Writing novels set in the real world still requires world-building, so I’m revisiting that “Five Foundations” post today and revising it to focus on realistic fiction.

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The Invisible Lesbian in Young Adult Fiction

The other day on twitter I saw someone tweet about their reluctance to read f/f (female/female) romance, even though they identified as a queer woman. They admitted that reading f/f could somehow feel too close for comfort; that reading m/m (male/male) romance was sometimes easier, and allowed them to relax more. Several people responded, a bit self-consciously, that they agreed.

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9 Lessons From 10 Years in Publishing

My first novel, Ash, was published in September 2009, which means this year marks my tenth year as a published novelist. Over the last few months I’ve tweeted out some of the lessons I’ve learned in the past decade, and as 2019 draws to a close I wanted to gather those lessons together in a more archivable format. These lessons come from my experience in traditional young adult publishing. Writers who are published in other genres, age categories, or who are self-published may have differing experiences.

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